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Portal 2 Peer Review DLC: fun, but missing the magic

Portal 2's first DLC is out: Peer Review adds a new chapter to the co- …

One of the great joys of Portal 2 was the co-op campaign. It was smartly constructed, fun to play, and had more than its share of delightful moments, making good use of the extra complexities that a two person, four-portal world enabled. The first DLC for Portal 2, named Peer Review, has just been released, and it adds a fifth (or perhaps sixth, depending on how you count) chapter to the co-op campaign.

The original game's co-op chapters were each themed after the gameplay elements they introduced: gels, excursion funnels, and so on, mirroring the way the single player game introduced one new element at a time. The theme of the new chapter, "Art Therapy," is... art. GLaDOS has created a series of art installations that Atlas and P-Body are invited to appreciate. The art installations are, of course, test chambers, and the proper appreciation of GLaDOS's artwork often requires taking an acid bath or being dropped into a bottomless pit.

The chapter has nine different test chambers, using the full range of lasers, buttons, cubes, hard light, and so on. The test chambers are tied together with a loose storyline; GLaDOS is under attack, and we have to vanquish the attacker.

A leisurely playthrough of Art Therapy took my playing partner and me about 90 minutes. It took a little while to get back into the Portal groove, but once we got into the swing of things, none of the puzzles presented much of a challenge. If anything, the difficulty was a little uneven, with the hardest maps coming in the middle of the chapter.

Peer Review includes new ways of using the tools found in the test chambers—for example, combining laser redirection cubes with excursion funnels—and the puzzles themselves are solid enough, but we both felt they lacked some of the joy of the original chapters. There was one standout puzzle in the original chapters—course 3, chamber 8—that was enormously satisfying, a real Eureka! moment. Nothing in Art Therapy evoked that same sense of accomplishment or pleasure; we entered each test chamber, figured out what to do, did it, and then moved on. It was all a little mechanical. Diverting and modestly entertaining, but not particularly memorable.

The story element was also frustrating. The original co-op campaign ended with a massive reveal, of huge importance to the Portal universe (and perhaps even the Half-Life universe, depending on how related Valve wants them to be), and the implication throughout Art Therapy was that the final battle would further advance the story line. Not only did the final battle not advance the story—it didn't even exist. The big battle never came, with Valve instead opting for a joke ending.

In addition to the cooperative campaign, the DLC also includes challenge modes, for both the single-player game and co-op. In challenge mode, the game records the number of portals used and time taken to complete each map. Challenge mode was a feature of Portal and its omission from Portal 2 was strange. Peer Review remedies that, and then goes further. Results are uploaded to Valve, allowing you to compare your time and portal count both to Portal community as a whole, and also to your friends.

Any map can be played and replayed in challenge mode. My interest in the mode was rather curtailed, however, because I could not make GLaDOS, Wheatley, or Cave Johnson shut up. Even if you didn't grow tired of Wheatley's schtick during the regular single-player game, challenge mode—where you might replay the same test chamber several times in a row to hone your technique and improve your scores—cranks up the annoyance factor to a whole new level. The same jokes, the same insults, the same everything over and over again, when all you really care about is getting through the puzzle as fast as possible.

I'd also still like to see a return of the advanced mode puzzles that were a feature of Portal. These took existing puzzles and then tweaked them to make them harder. For example, a map might have its floor replaced with acid, or turrets might be protected in cages to prevent you from knocking them over. This added an extra dimension to the game; it provided something for people who wanted tougher test chambers, rather than simply more of them.

If I had paid for Peer Review, I would be disappointed. There's probably enough content here that other companies would charge for it. But as free DLC, my gripes are much easier to overlook. If you aren't interested in the co-op campaign, Peer Review will be of limited value—but you're missing a trick, because the co-op campaign is a lot of fun. For everyone else, it's a worthwhile addition. Art Therapy may not have provided the sheer delight of the original campaigns, but I'm still glad I played it.

Valve does this a lot with their games, the entirety of portal 1 was much harder than 2. Even with multi-player they tend to "dumb things down" as it were. TF became TFC became TF2 and got softer, slower, less frenzied. CS became CS:S and all of the sudden weapons were less accurate and skill started to matter less. L4D was much harder to play right than L4D2, they made everything brighter for the second one and had less dependence on zombies like hunters which can be a bit more challenging to play. I think they do it to appeal to a wider market, and that's all well and fine, but for those of us that like hard games its kind of an issue. Of course, I'm a bit of curmudgeon about this kind of stuff, so it could just be me.

I can't find this on Steam. Can someone point me to the Steam store link?

There isn't one for the DLC. If you own portal 2, you have the DLC already. It is free and you don't have to do anything special, it will download and install it if it needs to the next time you run portal 2.

Is there any love for the counsole version or are we simply talking PC? I'd really like to play through some new levels with my wife :)(don't think I missed this in the post but correct me if I'm wrong)

Just got Portal 2 on sale the other day. Just in time for DLC, woo! Although I totally agree that there should be some way to shut the voices up. Knowing Valve games, you could probably just modify the sound files directly so they're quieter or gone altogether. Perhaps there's some way to modify this from the console?

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I have to disagree with Kani about L4D/L4D2, though. There was no way to punish campers in L4D; L4D2 brings the spitter. You could shove your way through campaigns in L4D; L4D2 brings shove fatigue.

One thing L4D did right was Versus, though. It's much easier to play infected on L4D maps; L4D2 maps feel like Versus mode was an afterthought. The Flying Ghosts plugin mitigates this problem, but there's still a dearth of rooftops to hide on in L4D2 maps.

As far as difficulty, Expert mode is still pretty freaking hard. One hunter scratch is 40 health. One zombie in the face is 20 health. One mistake can bring the whole team down in seconds.

And there are plenty of mutations, and the mod community is quite lively. If you want more Special Infected, try playing Special Delivery; it's a community mutation that Valve made official and even brought to the 360. 8 infected, spawn timer is set to 0. I can't tell you how many times I got hunted in spitter acid after getting smoked into a jockey.

I've seen a couple places mention course 3 chamber 8. Either I don't understand how to actually find that room or I'm not really getting what is so great about it. If I'm doing it right I get the room that has a turret pointing through a grate at the beginning, a button that turns on a laser, 3 turrets in a row and then more turrets behind glass.

I've seen a couple places mention course 3 chamber 8. Either I don't understand how to actually find that room or I'm not really getting what is so great about it. If I'm doing it right I get the room that has a turret pointing through a grate at the beginning, a button that turns on a laser, 3 turrets in a row and then more turrets behind glass.

The story element was also frustrating. The original co-op campaign ended with a massive reveal, of huge importance to the Portal universe (and perhaps even the Half-Life universe, depending on how related Valve wants them to be),

Just got Portal 2 on sale the other day. Just in time for DLC, woo! Although I totally agree that there should be some way to shut the voices up. Knowing Valve games, you could probably just modify the sound files directly so they're quieter or gone altogether. Perhaps there's some way to modify this from the console?

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I have to disagree with Kani about L4D/L4D2, though. There was no way to punish campers in L4D; L4D2 brings the spitter. You could shove your way through campaigns in L4D; L4D2 brings shove fatigue.

One thing L4D did right was Versus, though. It's much easier to play infected on L4D maps; L4D2 maps feel like Versus mode was an afterthought. The Flying Ghosts plugin mitigates this problem, but there's still a dearth of rooftops to hide on in L4D2 maps.

As far as difficulty, Expert mode is still pretty freaking hard. One hunter scratch is 40 health. One zombie in the face is 20 health. One mistake can bring the whole team down in seconds.

And there are plenty of mutations, and the mod community is quite lively. If you want more Special Infected, try playing Special Delivery; it's a community mutation that Valve made official and even brought to the 360. 8 infected, spawn timer is set to 0. I can't tell you how many times I got hunted in spitter acid after getting smoked into a jockey.

I agree with you that some new mechanics were added and that expert is still hard, but I found the multi-player to be easier on the zombie side. IE, in L4D most random players couldn't play zombies worth a damn, but in l4d2 there were enough zombies that were easy to play that had devastating options, like the spitter. Anyway, its a bit O/T, but I still feel like valve concentrates on making games playable by a large number of people rather than on making games that challenge the more skilled players.

As far as portal goes, anyone remember in portal 1 how you had to fling yourselves by re-portaling mid air a lot? I wonder if they took that out for the console users...

I've seen a couple places mention course 3 chamber 8. Either I don't understand how to actually find that room or I'm not really getting what is so great about it. If I'm doing it right I get the room that has a turret pointing through a grate at the beginning, a button that turns on a laser, 3 turrets in a row and then more turrets behind glass.

The story element was also frustrating. The original co-op campaign ended with a massive reveal, of huge importance to the Portal universe (and perhaps even the Half-Life universe, depending on how related Valve wants them to be),

Huh? The vault was a massive reveal? Did I miss something?

My thoughts exactly... I felt like it was a big punchline to a great joke. I didn't think it was very important to the overall canon. Did I miss something?

The story element was also frustrating. The original co-op campaign ended with a massive reveal, of huge importance to the Portal universe (and perhaps even the Half-Life universe, depending on how related Valve wants them to be),

Huh? The vault was a massive reveal? Did I miss something?

My thoughts exactly... I felt like it was a big punchline to a great joke. I didn't think it was very important to the overall canon. Did I miss something?

You don't think a secret vault full of humans that are unharmed by the Combine--or GLaDOS--is kind of a big deal? I dunno, it seemed pretty important to me.

The update also seemed to introduce a bug in the single player campaign during the level where there is neurotoxin and an alternative to Wheatley's hacking as found be being more literal. (I'm being vague on purpose.)

(I mention it because I have only started playing, having bought it during the "midweek madness" sale; don't want other people to be frustrated when they think the solution that is obvious doesn't work.)

My interest in the mode was rather curtailed, however, because I could not make GLaDOS, Wheatley, or Cave Johnson shut up. Even if you didn't grow tired of Wheatley's schtick during the regular single-player game, challenge mode—where you might replay the same test chamber several times in a row to hone your technique and improve your scores—cranks up the annoyance factor to a whole new level. The same jokes, the same insults, the same everything over and over again, when all you really care about is getting through the puzzle as fast as possible.

The update also seemed to introduce a bug in the single player campaign during the level where there is neurotoxin and an alternative to Wheatley's hacking as found be being more literal. (I'm being vague on purpose.)

(I mention it because I have only started playing, having bought it during the "midweek madness" sale; don't want other people to be frustrated when they think the solution that is obvious doesn't work.)

Huh, just bought this on Wednesday, didn't have an issue there so it doesn't appear to be an easily reproducible bug.

The story element was also frustrating. The original co-op campaign ended with a massive reveal, of huge importance to the Portal universe (and perhaps even the Half-Life universe, depending on how related Valve wants them to be),

Huh? The vault was a massive reveal? Did I miss something?

My thoughts exactly... I felt like it was a big punchline to a great joke. I didn't think it was very important to the overall canon. Did I miss something?

You don't think a secret vault full of humans that are unharmed by the Combine--or GLaDOS--is kind of a big deal? I dunno, it seemed pretty important to me.

I think Valve has made it pretty clear that Portal and Half-Life, while sharing similar universes, are not one in the same. I didn't see anything that denoted Combine refugees. From what I remember... it goes.. Portal, Portal 2 SP story, Glados is looking for new test subjects since Chell is gone, creates robots to access hidden vault full of new test subjects.

I actually found the co-op story to be completely at odds with the main story. For example, in Portal 2 SP, you start at the very bottom, and each successive era added new gels. In the co-op campaign you start at the top and keep going down, whilst adding more gels. It doesn't make sense, as the newer gels shouldn't exist in the older test chambers.

Then the "big reveal" makes Chell's existence kind of pointless. I don't like the idea of the vault, as it runs counter to the entire tension of existence the Portal SP campaign. So I'm going to pretend it's not canon.

The story element was also frustrating. The original co-op campaign ended with a massive reveal, of huge importance to the Portal universe (and perhaps even the Half-Life universe, depending on how related Valve wants them to be),

Huh? The vault was a massive reveal? Did I miss something?

My thoughts exactly... I felt like it was a big punchline to a great joke. I didn't think it was very important to the overall canon. Did I miss something?

You don't think a secret vault full of humans that are unharmed by the Combine--or GLaDOS--is kind of a big deal? I dunno, it seemed pretty important to me.

I think Valve has made it pretty clear that Portal and Half-Life, while sharing similar universes, are not one in the same. I didn't see anything that denoted Combine refugees. From what I remember... it goes.. Portal, Portal 2 SP story, Glados is looking for new test subjects since Chell is gone, creates robots to access hidden vault full of new test subjects.

My impression was that since Portal 2 skips so far into the future, the events of Half Life 3 are long in the past, since HL2 was only about 20 years after HL1, and Portal 1 either happens between HL1 and HL2 or concurrently with the events of HL2 and it's sequel episodes. Unless HL3 ends with a huge defeat for humanity, the Combine should be long gone by the time the events of Portal 2 happen.

I didn't think Portal 2 was set so far into the future. As Chell, you are the same human character. How long could it have been? 10-20 years? She was not in a slow time warp, as Gordon was between HL1 and 2. She had to have aged, right?

Edit: After some Googling, looks like P2 does take place 'hundreds of years' after P1. How the hell is this possible?

To add to my previous post, I believe Valve has pretty much stated that the events of Portal directly affect the events of Half Life, at least to some degree. Why else is the location of the Borealis important to Gordon (it was the part of the transmission packet Alex grabbed from the Citadel in Episode:1)? There must be some tie-in.

I've seen a couple places mention course 3 chamber 8. Either I don't understand how to actually find that room or I'm not really getting what is so great about it. If I'm doing it right I get the room that has a turret pointing through a grate at the beginning, a button that turns on a laser, 3 turrets in a row and then more turrets behind glass.

The story element was also frustrating. The original co-op campaign ended with a massive reveal, of huge importance to the Portal universe (and perhaps even the Half-Life universe, depending on how related Valve wants them to be),

Huh? The vault was a massive reveal? Did I miss something?

My thoughts exactly... I felt like it was a big punchline to a great joke. I didn't think it was very important to the overall canon. Did I miss something?

You don't think a secret vault full of humans that are unharmed by the Combine--or GLaDOS--is kind of a big deal? I dunno, it seemed pretty important to me.

I think Valve has made it pretty clear that Portal and Half-Life, while sharing similar universes, are not one in the same. I didn't see anything that denoted Combine refugees. From what I remember... it goes.. Portal, Portal 2 SP story, Glados is looking for new test subjects since Chell is gone, creates robots to access hidden vault full of new test subjects.

I was kind of hoping that the co-op campaign ended where the single player campaign starts. I'm not sure what people typically play first (I played single player first), but either way I think it would have been nice to have them tie in more obviously or directly.

I didn't think Portal 2 was set so far into the future. As Chell, you are the same human character. How long could it have been? 10-20 years? She was not in a slow time warp, as Gordon was between HL1 and 2. She had to have aged, right?

Edit: After some Googling, looks like P2 does take place 'hundreds of years' after P1. How the hell is this possible?

Before Portal 2 came out Valve changed the ending of Portal to where Chell is dragged off by a robot who apparently places her in suspended animation. At the beginning of Portal 2, she is woken up from suspended animation after quite a long time. Listen to how the counter for the number of days has pretty much maxed out:

Thanks for the reply. I never played the alternate ending of P1, so I didn't get that part. I do remember in the beginning of P2, the number of days that had passed were seemingly uncountable, but I thought that was a computer glitch that implied that years may have passed, but not hundreds of years. I could speculate further and figure that the Gman may be involved, but I'm probably trying too hard to mesh the two plots into one. I'll leave one more link for those confused (or who care). It's where I got most of my plot info, and seems to be accurate.

Peter, you might want to get what people call a "sense of humor". Usually people are born with it, so I'm not so sure how to acquire one, maybe a shop somewhere sells some, or something like that.

Until then, please stop pretending you are mentally qualified to review video games, or any form of entertainment for that matter, and go back to covering your usual Microsoft content that is guaranteed to not require a working sense of humor to comprehend.

I spoiled co-op course 3, chamber 8 by foolishly listening to the developer commentary before playing through the level.

Not sure why I did that. Can only blame myself. (Although most of the co-op commentary was safe apart from for that one chamber.)

Also had a couple of chambers spoiled by being paired with some git who already knew the solution and just wanted to race through it, telling me exactly what to do and complaining if I didn't do it immediately. But most of the players I met up with were great, and co-op Portal is fantastic.

I'll be playing through the DLC once my ADSL stops pooping itself every 10 minutes.

And IntergalacticWalrus, Wheatley is not funny for many of us who cannot forget being subjected to the same voice -- long before and long since -- in the patronising, stupid, pseudo-whacky and unfunny UK Barclays bank ads. I know Stephen Merchant has done some good stuff but those ads are all I can think of when I hear his voice, especially when he gives an *identical* delivery in the game.

Wheatley might be the best comedy character and acting ever made but some of us can smell the strong stench of Satan's pecker on his breath, and it ain't nice.

Even if he was great, he'd soon become non-great if you heard the same identical lines and jokes over and over and over again. Especially in levels where you're forced to sit around doing nothing while you wait for the game to play itself through unskipable set-pieces. (Or can you bypass them in Challenge Mode?)

The update seems to have made it so I cannot select a single-player chapter when starting a new game anymore (even outside of Challenge Mode), even though I've finished the SP game twice. Weird.

So people are complaining about FREE content not being enough for them? I welcome anything for free and what it may or may not contain means little to me. It adds to my gaming experience no matter what it offers. After all, IT'S FREE!!! Some people just want something to whine about. [Runs to the fridge to get you some cheese to go with it]